The children swarmed around the entertainers, who were gathered in front of the dining room door. The clowns were there again, but this time there were four. I noted each of them absently. White clown, yellow clown, blue clown, red clown.
I leaned a little closer to the screen. There he was, a clown in red, performing tricks at a small table. He was a big man, that much was obvious. He was pulling a rabbit out of a hat, while the other three clowns squirted each other with seltzer. It was obvious the red clown was the feature attraction.
I left the video running and went into the next room to fetch the statement folder. I wanted to know that fourth clown’s name. I sneaked a peak back at the video. The kids were outside, in bathing suits, frolicking around the pool. Someone else was manning the camera now. Mr. And Mrs. Champion were relaxing in pool chairs, having a drink. The camera cut abruptly to Georgia, in a red one-piece bathing suit. She regarded the camera with a shy grin.
I froze. Something about the scene made my blood run cold. The clown in red was standing next to the clown in blue. They were both big men. The same size, in fact. But there was something else. It seemed the clowns were doing the shooting now, and the tape was filled with them mugging and making faces. It went on for quite awhile. There was an undercurrent that was quite disturbing, as if the party had gone wrong. All the adults had left, and things had taken a curious twist.
There was footage of Mr. Champion dozing in his pool chair, obviously after one too many drinks. He still held a half-full highball glass in his sleeping hand. The cameraman had made sure to note this. There was quite a lot of footage of the other children swimming. And there was footage of Georgia, sitting in the Red Clown’s lap. Like the rest of the latter part of the tape, there was an undertone, a nagging suggestion that made my stomach turn, slowly and noisily within me.
My heart thudded dully in my chest. Was I on to something? Or was I imagining things? Would another person see the same things in that tape I had seen? Suspect the things I suspected? Or would it all look innocent? The police had watched this same tape, surely, and for the same reasons I had watched it. Cynical professional detectives would not fail to note the same things that filled me with unease.
Little children don’t help engineer their own abductions.
No, maybe they didn’t. But children were often misled, very often by predators who gravitated toward jobs that brought them into contact with their victims of choice.
Like a pedophile might apply for work as a daycare worker. That’s why there were guidelines, I mused, things like background checks. And maybe a person like that might just consider another line of work. Like being a clown. There was only one way to know for sure. The red clown would have to tell me.
Chapter 7
“Clown Around” was listed in the yellow pages as “Birmingham’s Funniest Clown Service,” along with a host of others. The address was in Irondale, an outlying district of shopping malls and car lots. I decided to drop in unannounced. Driving north on I-20, I turned on the radio and a man with a deep, mournful voice was singing,
It was the dirty end of winter
Along the loom of the land
When I walked with sweet Sally
Hand upon hand
And the wind it bit bitter
For a boy of no means
With no shoes on his feet
And a knife in his jeans
The song went on, becoming more foreboding. I was reminded uneasily of Georgia, in her bathing suit, sitting in the Red Clown’s lap, the parents asleep or safely drunk. I shook my head and put the image from my mind. I took the Irondale exit and stayed to the right. Clown Around was located next to a restaurant made famous for its scantily clad, buxom waitresses.
The two businesses were at the top of a hill, the only ones up there. They seemed to share a parking lot. I pulled up to Clown Around’s door. There was a Be right back! sign on the door, with a picture of a clown and a clock with clown hands. According to the clock, the clowns were due to return in twenty-five minutes.
“Busy clowns,” I mused. My gaze drifted over to the restaurant.
It was almost time for lunch.
After about half an hour, I was finishing my third glass of iced tea and talking with a couple of the waitresses when a pink polka-dotted van drove through the parking lot.
“Those are my clowns,” I told the young women, and winked, sliding from my seat and heading out the door.
There were three clowns, all right. They were unloading the van, taking out stereo equipment, folding tables, and various other clown equipment.
“You got an elephant in there?” I asked brightly. The clown nearest to me almost dropped the seltzer bottles he was carrying. His head snapped around, his blue Afro wig bobbing.
“Mister, you scared the bejeezus outa me.”
“Sorry. My name’s Roland Longville.”
“I’m Slappy. Call me Sal. The guy in blue over there is Jokey—grown ups call him Joe.”
“I’m Ed,” the clown in the yellow volunteered. All three laughed at the in-joke.
“So, sir, what is the occasion, a birthday? Need a magic show? We also do singing deliveries.”
“No, really, I just wanted to ask you some questions. I’m a private investigator.”
The smile disappeared, and behind the grease paint, the man’s eyes narrowed. “Let me guess, the Champion thing.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Why don’t they let that kid rest in peace.”
“You saying she’s dead?”
“Cut the crap, bud. We had those cops grill us for a week about that business. They got everything we know written by us, taped, and typed up forty ways from Sunday. They’ll tell you, we all had alibis. We were all downstairs, and the kid went upstairs and disappeared. You ask me, it’s like the Lindbergh baby. A damn tragedy, but these things happen.”
“Well, I agree with you about that last part. I’ve seen the police material. There are some things I think they probably didn’t ask you. The questions I wanted to ask you won’t take long. I think they might be very important.”
“Okay, buddy, suit yourself.”
“Roland. Roland Longville.” We shook hands, though Sal’s face stayed wary beneath his makeup.
“Okay, then, Roland, can you interrogate us while we wash the paint off?”
“Sure thing.” I followed them into the rear of the building. Sal kept up a constant banter while we walked along.
“I’ll never understand how anybody got in there. I mean, it’s a neighborhood full of uppity-ups. They got a fence around that place. All they lacked was an armed guard.”
“They have one now,” I quipped as I took in the circus posters and carnival decorations. Clown posters and masks from around the world. Something about it was a little creepy.
Maybe I’ve been watching one too many videos.
There was a dressing room in the back. All three men took seats at a wide dressing mirror that was rimmed with lights. Sal scooped some petroleum jelly from a jar, and started rubbing it on his face with a towel, stripping the paint from his face. Wrinkles began to appear. I guessed he was about forty-five. He started talking as he cleaned up.
“It figures they would get a guard now. I mean, the kid’s gone. They never had any more, right?” Sal pulled his blue wig off, revealing a balding pate, rimmed with gray. I added ten years to my previous estimate of his age.
“Right.”
“So what do you want to know?”
“I was watching the videotape of the party from the Champion’s place. Was that a big party for you guys?”
“You bet. The Champions like us—well, used to like us. They hired all three of us. That’s not the usual kid’s birthday party. Most people can’t afford to hire all three of us. We also got a heap of good referrals from them. Take today by comparison. We just got back from a mall opening. Four hours of running around, handing out balloons, repeating the same gags, and for
half of what the Champions would have paid us. I sure miss that gig.”
“Which one of you guys went outside during the party?”
“That was me. The most talked about trip of my life,” said the man in the middle, Jokey. He had removed his blue clown suit, and was shrugging into a denim jacket. Now he was just Joe.
“Why did you go outside?”
“You said you had looked at the police records, right? Then you know I’m diabetic, and that I take insulin. Well, I have to inject it. I went out there to take it. Can’t let the kids see the clowns shooting up, now can we?”
“So you always step out to the van to take it?”
“Well, I also have to keep the stuff cold. I keep it in the cooler in the van.”
“Do you guys keep anything else in the cooler?”
“What the hell kind of a question is that?” Sal asked.
“Just a question. You guys ever take a drop?” I directed the question to Sal.
“We’re clowns, not saints. But nobody had a drop the day that kid disappeared.”
“Fair enough, I believe you.” I turned back to Joe. “Do you remember what time you went out to the van to take your insulin on that day?”
“Do I ever. I guess I’ll never forget, the cops made such a big deal about it. I went out at about 1:35. That was about twenty-five minutes before the little angel disappeared.”
“How long were you out there?”
“Well sir, Mrs. Champion took the kids into the dayroom to play a game, or some damn thing, and I slipped out through the dining room. I guess I was out there ten minutes. I took a little breather while I was at it. I was safely back in the house by the time the police say she disappeared.”
“That’s what Kenny Joiner told me. You know Kenny, the boy who said that he saw Georgia on the stairs? The children weren’t playing a game, incidentally. They were watching a video from the previous year’s party.”
“Wait a second, that’s right. He has a good memory for a little fellow. I remember that, too, now. Mrs. Champion took all of the kids into the day room. She sat them down in front of the television, to keep them out of the caterer’s way. I think it was Georgia’s idea to watch the video.”
“When you came back in, did you come in through the dayroom door?”
“No. We were parked right outside of the dining room. I went out, and came in through the French doors in the dining room. The caterers saw me.”
I turned to the other clowns.
“Which one of you guys came in through the day room door?”
Sal had finished cleaning up. He regarded me dourly for a second before speaking.
“Mister, We were both in the dining room the whole time. We had plenty of witnesses.”
“I know that. I believe you are all telling the truth, too. But one thing puzzles me. Kenny Joiner saw another clown come in through the day room doors.”
“Come on, there were just three of us at that party. We were all accounted for,” Ed snorted, as he stood up to leave. “That’s a kid’s story. The other kids didn’t remember seeing any clown. That’s why the cops didn’t believe him about seeing Georgia coming down the stairs.”
“Like Joe pointed out, Kenny is a kid with a really good memory.”
Ed huffed and went out. Joe stood up, too. “You need to ask me anything else?”
“No, but thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Hey, it’s none of my business, mister, but if I was you, I’d drop the whole damn thing. I’m in agreement with Sal. Whoever nabbed that kid, they did it and got clean away. But I wish you the best of luck, anyway.”
He went out, leaving just me, and Sal, who sat looking at me with a bemused, if slightly hostile expression.
“I sort of got the feeling there was something more you wanted to ask,” he said, with just a hint of irritation.
“Kind of.”
“What’ll it be, mister? I sort of thought we’d covered everything. And it isn’t like it hasn’t all been covered before.”
“I promise I won’t keep you long, Sal. This question isn’t about the three of you, necessarily.”
“Okay. But in that case, I really don’t see how I can help.”
“Well, this is sort of a funny question.”
“Great, go ahead. I could use the laughs.”
“It’s about the party the year before Georgia disappeared. Her eighth birthday.”
Sal fidgeted a little in his chair. “So, that’s why you asked the question about us drinking. I guess I had a suspicion.”
“I figured that you might. I saw that video, Sal. The atmosphere was sort of a strange one, later on. I noticed the parents were drinking. They didn’t do that the following year. Why? Toward the end, I saw Mr. Champion asleep by the pool. At that point, Mrs. Champion wasn’t there anymore. That’s hardly any way to chaperone a group of children.”
“Yeah, yeah. I remember, all right. About Mrs. Champion, I mean. She went upstairs to lie down. She came back down later. She was back by the time the other parents arrived to pick up their kids.”
“Why did she go upstairs? Was she sick?”
Sal attempted to field a sheepish grin, but it died before it got very far. “She isn’t a drinker. I think she had one too many.”
“How drunk were you guys?” I sat down in Joe’s vacant chair and scooted a little closer to Sal. “Did you drink a lot?”
“Look, don’t get the idea we’re a bunch of drunks, because it isn’t so. I don’t drink much, mister, and never on the job. Except that day, I mean. That day was just weird. First, the Champions started drinking, then it just seemed we were. Maybe things did get a little out of hand. But that was a year before the girl disappeared. Who cares?”
“I care, Sal. Because I think something might have happened that day that has a bearing on her disappearance.”
“Like what?” Something in Sal’s eyes told me he was getting nervous.
Go easy. Let him keep talking.
“Who is the clown in red on the videotape?” I edged his chair a little closer.
“Why isn’t he with you guys any more?”
Sal looked down and let out a long breath. “Aw, Jesus.”
Sal looked up after a time, and I saw something else in his eyes, beyond the nervousness he’d seen before. It was something I’d seen in other people’s eyes, years before, when I had been a policeman, and many times since. It was the look that people in the theater called tragic recognition.
“You think he was the one?”
“Sal, aside from seeing him on a video that is three and a half years old, I don’t know a thing about the guy. You want to tell me something about him?”
Sal looked past me, then bent over in the chair again, as if he were about to be sick. His voice was just a whisper.
“Samson Fain.”
“That’s his real name?”
“Yeah. He was a smart kid. Really smart.” Sal raised his head, and a smile brightened his features. “I mean he was big, like a bear, but really gentle. He loved kids. And they loved him! He was really good. He knew magic tricks, all the old comedy bits that keep the kids rolling. He was dedicated, too. He would stay up late working out new gags. I’d never seen anything like him. He brought us in a lot of business.”
While he spoke, there had been a light in his eyes, as though he were talking about a favorite son who had done well for himself. Now the light went out, and the smile fell.
“But?” I asked the silence that followed. “What happened?”
“When he first showed up here, we thought, look at this weird, big kid who wants to be a clown. But we had him all wrong. He was cut out for this business. He was a real professional, the kind that you don’t see much anymore.” Sal’s voice had become distant, objective from what he was remembering.
“It sounds like you liked him.”
“He reminded me of myself. When I was younger, it wasn’t just a bunch of tired old gags. He reminded me of that. Yeah,
I liked him. But we started having problems.”
“What kind?”
Sal got up and walked over to the clothes rack. He slid a few garments aside, and pulled out one I had seen before, if only on tape. A big red clown suit.
“This kind.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Well, the color red is scary to some kids, for one thing. It’s not the best choice for a clown costume, at any rate. Same thing with his make-up. Samson’s make up had black around the eyes, and his smile was kind of pointy at the corners. Some adults found that scary. Plus he was a big guy, Joe’s size, but meatier. Strongest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. Not that I think he would hurt a fly. One time the van got stuck on the way to a gig and he picked the rear end up and set it over, out of the chuckhole.” Sal shook his head, as though disbelieving his own story. He nodded toward the costume. “That’s kind of extreme for an auguste clown.”
“Pardon me? Auguste?”
“There are different types of clowns, mister. There are tramps, lady clowns, even cops and clowns in drag. The type we are, what most people go to the circus to see, well, that’s what you call an auguste clown.”
“Ah. I see.” I gestured toward the costume. “Were those the only problems you had? That trouble about the costume, and the make-up?”
“No. After a while, it became obvious that he had his own ideas about how the show ought to be run. He wanted to plan everything, run everything. We let him at first. You know, it brought new blood in, and maybe we were a little stale. We were excited. But after a while he got too domineering. Joe’s pretty headstrong, too. He and Joe had some run-ins. Also, Samson’s clown name was Jovius, Joe’s name is Jokey. The kids got them mixed up.”
“Why did Samson leave?”
“He and Joe had a really bad run-in, right after Joe came back from the hospital.”
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